The Host

The Host

By Phillip Miller

The day started with a simple enough sign.  One hand sliding back and forth a few times, directly in front of the patient’s eyes, then a click of the fingers and a clap of the hands; still no response; same routine he’d carried out for the last two years. He paused to observe himself momentarily in a mirrored closet. The years had not been kind; neither had he. The days of playing with her were over now; cameras everywhere.

Chetin had observed the same routine every morning. It baffled him: no accident, no OD, no trauma, no disease and no identification. She fascinated him.  Her dark hazel eyes had remained open since the day she was discovered.  Her body had been athletic and tanned, but was now pale and weak; growing weaker by the day, it seemed. He finished his scheduled care programme and opened the blinds and window. The sun’s rays filtered through; light and dark ribbed across the patient’s bed. Something glistening caught the male nurse’s eye on the floor, just below the head support actuator. Chetin got down on his knees to investigate.  Obesity was playing havoc with his knees and the inguinal hernia was proving more painful by the day.  After picking the item up he placed one hand on the bed, to help himself up, and froze as he felt the warmth of human contact. Stilling his breath heightened his senses. Fear gripped him, he could not lookup. “What the hell!” he said, as the object in his palm pulsated and burnt into his flesh, his screams trapped within his mind, his voice locked in as the silver object expanded into a chrome veined Icosahedron shaped vessel.

In an instant, he was gone.

Alicia Wright flinched, the colour back in her cheeks for a fleeting moment, before her eyes slowly rolled back.

The track looked very inviting from where he sat, oblivious to the crowd that had slowly formed behind him. A cool breeze blew as a familiar tune came into his head,  and so he started to hum along to it. Then, in the distance, he saw the pin-prick main light of the 7pm to Nottingham, and so steadied himself on the cold, damp capping stone, ready for the big push.  He felt the pressure again, heavier this time, bearing down on him. His hands were shaking but the nicotine was calling and so rolled one last cigarette.

The click-clack of the oncoming train had an ominous rhythm to it and the timing was perfect. The crowd grew steadily larger. Some asked him to “come down!” or, “don’t do it!” A man holding a Rottweiler said, “Not yet mate!” as he reached for his phone and took a selfie.  An elderly woman raised her hand to touch him but then thought better of it.

The unshaven, unkempt vagrant turned his head slightly; the crowd stepping back in unison with the odd gasp here and there.

Jay Beeson had a date with destiny. He had tried hard; not hard enough it would seem. He knew the train would fly past this stop. If he timed it right then he would hit the ground just as it reached the bridge.

“Jump then, you arsehole,” said a gruff voice over and above the rest. “I’ve been here for nearly twenty minutes and my salad’s getting cold.” Most people cussed him into silence, but a few couldn’t help but laugh.” Jay shuffled forward slightly. It ends today.

“Go on then, fuckin’jump!” came the gruff voice again. The speeding commuter train was visible now. Jay felt happy. For the first time in years, he felt at peace. “It’s finally over,” he whispered. There was a quietening in his mind. Thirty seconds; twenty seconds; ten seconds.

Jay pushed off with both hands as the crowd screamed in horror.

It seemed, however, that someone else had the same idea. Just as he was about to crash to his death, a figure leapt from the almost empty platform and smashed into his side, breaking Jay’s fall and knocking him sideways onto the stretch of ballast that lined the bank.  The unwitting tormenter was obliterated. His body smashed and ripped to pieces beneath the two hundred tonne flyer.

It was over in a flash and the sorry subject that was Jay Beeson picked himself up, brushed himself down and looked up at the stars.

“Please,” he raised his arms to the night sky and screamed, “let me go.”

Sirens could be heard in the distance: the image of Grandbrooke House fixed in his mind.

Never going back there. I’d rather be dead. I can’t be dead. she owns me. He walked along the train tracks for a few miles before reaching his makeshift home; a large disused, galvanised water tank that sat on the dilapidated ruin that was Fribett’s Cradle.

After climbing up the old wooden ladder and lifting the cutout lid he fell inside. His stomach grumbled as he took a slice of mildewed bread and leftover tuna from a torn haversack, chewed slowly, and then wept.

Copyright Phillip Miller